A Mind to Murder (7 page)

“Only Mummy and me.”

“I shall have to see Miss Bolam’s solicitor, I expect,” said Dalgliesh, “but it would be helpful if you would tell me as much as you know about her affairs. I’m afraid I have to ask these personal questions. Usually they have no bearing on the crime, but one must know as much as possible about everyone concerned. Had your cousin any income apart from her salary?”

“Oh, yes. Enid was quite well off. Uncle Sydney left her mother about £25,000 and it all came to Enid. I don’t know how much was left, but I think she had about £1,000 a year coming in apart from her salary here. She kept on auntie’s flat in Ballantyne Mansions and she… she was always very good to us.”

“In what way, Miss Bolam? Did she make you an allowance?”

“Oh, no! Enid wouldn’t want to do that. She gave us presents. Thirty pounds at Christmas and fifty in July for our summer holiday. Mummy has disseminated sclerosis and we couldn’t go away to an ordinary hotel.”

“And what happens to Miss Bolam’s money now?”

The grey eyes lifted to meet his with no trace of embarrassment. She answered simply:

“It will come to Mummy and me. There wasn’t anyone else to leave it to, was there? Enid always said it would come to us if she died first. But, of course, it wasn’t likely that she would die first; not while Mummy was alive anyway.”

It was indeed unlikely, in the ordinary course of events, that Mrs. Bolam would ever have benefited from that £20,000 or what was left of it, thought Dalgliesh. Here was the obvious motive, so understandable, so universal, so dear to any prosecuting counsel. Every juryman understood the lure of money. Could Nurse Bolam really be unaware of the significance of the information which she was handing him with such unembarrassed candour? Could innocence be so naïve or guilt so confident? He said suddenly:

“Was your cousin popular, Miss Bolam?”

“She hadn’t many friends. I don’t think she would have called herself popular. She wouldn’t want that. She had her church activities and the Guides. She was a very quiet person really.”

“But you know of no enemies?”

“Oh, no! None at all. Enid was very much respected.”

The formal, old-fashioned epithet was almost inaudible.

Dalgliesh said:

“Then it looks as if this is a motiveless, unpremeditated crime. Normally that would suggest one of the patients. But it hardly seems possible and you are all insistent that it isn’t likely.”

“Oh, no! It couldn’t be a patient! I’m quite sure none of our patients would do a thing like that. They aren’t violent.”

“Not even Mr. Tippett?”

“But it couldn’t have been Tippett. He’s in hospital.”

“So I’m told. How many people here knew that Mr. Tippett wouldn’t be coming to the clinic this Friday?”

“I don’t know. Nagle knew because he took the message and he told Enid and Sister. Sister told me. You see, I usually try to keep an eye on Tippett when I’m specialling the LSD patients on Fridays. I can’t leave my patient for more than a second, of course, but I do pop out occasionally to see if Tippett is all right. Tonight it wasn’t necessary. Poor Tippett, he does love his art therapy! Mrs. Baumgarden has been away ill for six months now, but we couldn’t stop Tippett from coming. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. It’s wicked to suggest that Tippett could have anything to do with it. Wicked!”

She spoke with sudden vehemence. Dalgliesh said mildly:

“But no one is suggesting anything of the sort. If Tippett is in hospital—and I haven’t the least doubt we shall find that he is—then he couldn’t have been here.”

“But someone put his fetish on the body, didn’t they? If Tippett had been here you would have suspected him straight away and he would have been so upset and confused. It was a wicked thing to do. Really wicked!”

Her voice broke and she was very near to tears. Dalgliesh watched the thin fingers twisting in her lap. He said gently:

“I don’t think we need worry about Mr. Tippett. Now I want you to think carefully and tell me everything that you know happened in the clinic from the time you came on duty this evening. Never mind about other people, I just want to know what you did.”

Nurse Bolam remembered very clearly what she had done and, after a second’s hesitation, she gave a careful and logical account. It was her job on Friday evenings to “special” any patient undergoing treatment with lysergic acid. She explained that this was a method of releasing deep-seated inhibitions so that the patient was able to recall and recount the incidents which were being repressed in his subconscious and were responsible for his illness. As she spoke about the treatment Nurse Bolam lost her nervousness and seemed to forget that she was talking to a layman. But Dalgliesh did not interrupt.

“It’s a remarkable drug and Dr. Baguley uses it quite a lot. Its name is lysergic acid diethylamide and I think it was discovered by a German in 1942. We administer it orally, and the usual dose is 0.25 mg. It’s produced in ampoules of 1 mg. and mixed with from 15 to 30 cc’s of distilled water. The patients are told not to have any breakfast. The first effects are noticed after about half an hour and the more disturbing subjective experiences occur from one to one and a half hours after administration. That’s when Dr. Baguley comes down to be with the patient. The effects can last for as long as four hours and the patient is flushed and restless and quite withdrawn from reality. They’re never left alone, of course, and we use the basement room because it’s secluded and quiet and other patients aren’t distressed by the noise. We usually give LSD treatments on Friday afternoon and evening, and I always ‘special’ the patient.”

“I suppose that, if any noise, such as a cry, were heard on Fridays in the basement most of the staff would assume that it was the LSD patient?”

Nurse Bolam looked doubtful.

“I suppose they might. Certainly these patients can be very noisy. My patient today was more disturbed than usual which was why I stayed close to her. Usually I spend a little time in the linen-room which adjoins the treatment-room sorting the clean laundry as soon as the patient is over the worst. I keep the door open between the rooms, of course, so that I can watch the patient from time to time.”

Dalgliesh asked what exactly had happened during the evening.

“Well, the treatment began just after three-thirty and Dr. Baguley looked in shortly after four to see if all was well. I stayed with the patient until four-thirty when Mrs. Shorthouse came to tell me that tea was made. Sister came down while I went upstairs to the nurses’ duty-room and drank tea. I came down again at quarter to five and rang for Dr. Baguley at five. He was with the patient for about three-quarters of an hour. Then he left to return to his E.C.T. clinic. I stayed with the patient, and as she was so restless I decided to leave the laundry until later in the evening. At about twenty to seven Peter Nagle knocked on the door and asked for the laundry. I told him that it wasn’t sorted and he looked a bit surprised but didn’t say anything. A little time after that I thought I heard a scream. I didn’t take any notice at first as it didn’t seem very close and I thought it was children playing in the square. Then I thought I ought to make sure and I went to the door. I saw Dr. Baguley and Dr. Steiner coming into the basement with Sister and Dr. Ingram. Sister told me that nothing was wrong and to go back to my patient, so I did.”

“Did you leave the treatment-room at all after Dr. Baguley left you at about quarter to six?”

“Oh, no! There wasn’t any need. If I’d wanted to go to the cloakroom or anything like that (Nurse Bolam blushed faintly) I would have phoned for Sister to come and take my place.”

“Did you make any telephone calls from the treatment-room at all during the evening?”

“Only the one to the E.C.T. room at five to call Dr. Baguley.”

“Are you quite sure you didn’t telephone Miss Bolam?”

“Enid? Oh, no! There wouldn’t be any reason to call Enid. She… that is, we didn’t see very much of each other in the clinic. I am responsible to Sister Ambrose, you see, and Enid wasn’t concerned with the nursing staff.”

“But you saw quite a lot of her outside the clinic?”

“Oh, no! I didn’t mean that. I went to her flat once or twice, to collect the cheque at Christmas and in the summer, but it isn’t easy for me to leave Mummy. Besides, Enid had her own life to live. And then she’s quite a lot older than me. I didn’t really know her very well.”

Her voice broke and Dalgliesh saw that she was crying. Fumbling under her apron for the pocket in her nurse’s dress, she sobbed:

“It’s so dreadful! Poor Enid! Putting that fetish on her body as if he was making fun of her, making it look as if she was nursing a baby!”

Dalgliesh hadn’t realized that she had seen the body and said so.

“Oh, I didn’t! Dr. Etherege and Sister wouldn’t let me go in to her. But we were all told what had happened.”

Miss Bolam had indeed looked as if she were nursing a baby. But he was surprised that someone who hadn’t seen the body should say so. The medical director must have given a graphic description of the scene.

Suddenly Nurse Bolam found her handkerchief and drew it out of her pocket. With it came a pair of thin, surgical gloves. They fell at Dalgliesh’s feet. Picking them up he asked:

“I didn’t realize that you used surgical gloves here.”

Nurse Bolam seemed unsurprised by his interest. Checking her sobs with surprising control she replied:

“We don’t use them very often but we keep a few pairs. The whole Group’s gone over to disposable gloves now, but there are a few of the old kind about. That’s one of them. We use them for odd cleaning jobs.”

“Thank you,” said Dalgliesh. “I’ll keep this pair if I may. And I don’t think I need worry you any more at present.”

With a murmured word which could have been “thank you”, Nurse Bolam almost backed out of the room.

The minutes dragged heavily to the clinic staff waiting in the front consulting-room to be interviewed. Fredrica Saxon had fetched some papers from her room on the third floor and was scoring an intelligence test. There had been some discussion about whether she ought to go upstairs alone, but Miss Saxon had stated firmly that she didn’t intend to sit there wasting time and biting her nails until the police chose to see her, that she hadn’t the murderer hidden upstairs, nor was she proposing to destroy incriminating evidence and that she had no objection to any member of the staff accompanying her to satisfy themselves on this point. This distressing frankness had provoked a murmur of protests and reassurance, but Mrs. Bostock had announced abruptly that she would like to fetch a book from the medical library and the two women had left the room and returned together. Cully had been seen early, having established his right to be classed as a patient, and had been released to cosset his stomach-ache at home. The only remaining patient, Mrs. King, had been interviewed and allowed to depart with her husband in attendance. Mr. Burge had also left, protesting loudly at the interruption of his session and the trauma of the whole experience.

“Mind you, he’s enjoying himself, you can see that,” confided Mrs. Shorthouse to the assembled staff. “The Superintendent had a job getting rid of him, I can tell you.”

There was a great deal which Mrs. Shorthouse seemed able to tell them. She had been given permission to make coffee and prepare sandwiches in her small ground-floor kitchen at the rear of the building, and this gave her an excuse for frequent trips up and down the hall. The sandwiches were brought in almost singly. Cups were taken individually to be washed. This coming and going gave her an opportunity of reporting the latest situation to the rest of the staff who awaited each instalment with an anxiety and eagerness which they could only imperfectly conceal. Mrs. Shorthouse was not the emissary they would have chosen but any news, however obtained and by whomever delivered, helped to lighten the weight of suspense and she was certainly unexpectedly knowledgeable about police procedure.

“There’s several of them searching the building now and they’ve got their own chap on the door. They haven’t found anyone, of course. Well, it stands to reason! We know he couldn’t have got out of the building. Or in for that matter. I said to the sergeant: ‘This clinic has had all the cleaning from me that it’s getting today, so tell your chaps to mind where they plant their boots…’ ”

“The police surgeon’s seen the body. The fingerprint man is still downstairs and they’re taking everyone’s prints. I’ve seen the photographer. He went through the hall with a tripod and a big case, white on top and black at the bottom…”

“Here’s a funny thing now. They’re looking for prints in the basement lift. Measuring it up, too.”

Fredrica Saxon lifted her head, seemed about to say something, then went on with her work. The basement lift, which was about four feet square and operated by a rope pulley, had been used to transport food from the basement kitchen to the first-floor dining-room when the clinic was a private house. It had never been taken out. Occasionally medical records from the basement record-room were hoisted in it to the first- and second-floor consulting-rooms, but it was otherwise little used. No one commented on a possible reason why the police should test it for prints.

Mrs. Shorthouse departed with two cups to be washed. She was back within five minutes.

“Mr. Lauder’s in the general office phoning the chairman. Telling him about the murder, I suppose. This’ll give the H.M.C. something to natter about and no mistake. Sister is going through the linen inventory with one of the police. Seems there’s a rubber apron from the art therapy-room missing. Oh, and another thing. They’re letting the boiler out. Want to rake it through, I suppose. Nice for us, I must say. This place’ll be bloody cold on Monday…”

“The mortuary van’s arrived. That’s what they call it. The mortuary van. They don’t use an ambulance, you see. Not when the victim’s dead. You probably heard it arrive. I dare say if you draw the curtains back a bit you’ll see her being took in.”

But no one cared to draw back the curtains and, as the soft, careful feet of the stretcher-bearers shuffled past the door no one spoke. Fredrica Saxon laid down her pencil and bowed her head as if she were praying. When the front door closed their relief was heard in the soft hiss of breath released. There was a brief silence and then the van drove off. Mrs. Shorthouse was the only one to speak.